In a world where advertisers (according to a recent study) are considered to be only one notch above used car salesman, advertisers are looking (as well as marketers) for a new way to reach consumers. As Shel Israel/Robert Scoble's book "Naked Conversations" mentioned, Interruption Marketing was simply obnoxious. One of the resultants was viral marketing (which word of mouth falls under). The reason for word of mouth's success is the layer of truth and understanding. The most powerful word of mouth (WOM) comes from people you trust, namely friends and family. That is not to understate the power of WOM through blogs: they are a powerful marketer's tool.
Blogs create a one-to-many relationship, which provides for a good way to get your message out to the public. Blogs also allow one to comment on prior posts/comments. This is important because as jackie Huba states, "...Two-way marketing is essential to evangelism. Word-of-mouth tactics may backfire if they are one-directional." (Scoble and Israel 38)
Another key function for marketers/advertisers is the ability to advertise on blogs. For instance, on an ESPN blog, one advertisement could be for Cleveland Indians playoff tickets or for a related product. This way, WOM is working in conjunction with interstitals, blog ads, etc.
A quick example of WOM at work is the video that has been long circulating (by today's circumstances) is The Landlord. My friend sent it to me and so I knew I had to check it out. Through WOM this video has had an obscene number of hits.
The only thing I can predict that will come next is taking blogging and Google's YouTube and Google Video (among other services) to become video blogs. WOM would be an excellent choice for promotion because it is so easy and cheap.
Scoble, Robert, and Shel Israel. Naked Conversations. 1st Ed. Hoboken, NJ: Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The Mouth's Word
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2 comments:
I agree with your prediction. With the growth of YouTube and video, blogging is already starting to use video.
It just blows my mind how fast word of mouth catches on with some of these video. Like the Landlord, and Leave Brittany Alone. There are thousands of videos uploaded each day on YouTube, yet somehow these videos explode and even reach the news.
It's true. I agree with your prespective. Blogging is growing faster and bigger everyday and every second. I think that we will see more technology integrated into the blogging world. and it will be much more organized and controlled since it grabed people's attention and satisfaction.
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